In search of Incorporeality.

[Lord Pendragon]

I have a 12th-level paladin (that I play, not DM) who picked up Leadership as his 12th-level feat. Currently I and my DM are working out exactly what sort of cohort he'll have. The biggest issue is that the party is rather large (7 PCs, 2 Animal Companions, 1 Special Mount) and space can be a big issue.

So I'm looking for a way to have a cohort that doesn't take up physical space. So far we've come up with:

* An intelligent item cohort.
* A ghost cohort (incorporeal).

So I'm asking the community here: can you think of any other ways to create a character in D&D that doesn't take up physical space? (Please list any obscure sources.)

 

[Taloras]

Split personality? Either that or a Tiny creature....

 

[interwyrm]

One of those positive energy spirits that help a person in their battle prowess... what are they called?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

One of those positive energy spirits that help a person in their battle prowess... what are they called?

Glimmerskin. I actually looked it up after the cohort concept came up. But it's a whopping +15 LA.

 

[Jack Simth]

Well, there's the Unbodied in the psionics section of the SRD; 4 d8 hit dice, LA +4, manifests as a Psion 4 (telepath), advances by character class, and has any Psion (telepath) levels it picks up stack with it's racial Psion (telepath) levels. It's also got some useful at will Su abilities.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I have this mental image of a cohort trapped by a permanent Magic Jar spell. He resides in a gem most of the time, but if he needs to say or do something, he needs to take over a handy body. Might be one of the PCs, might not be...

-Hyp.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Well, there's the Vivacious template, which turns the creature into a positive energy-spewing incorporeal thing for a whopping +5 LA. This is found in the Planar Handbook, and is the first time I've gotten use out of the darn thing.

Perhaps a lantern archon? Get an exceptional one, slap some class levels on its max hit dice, and go for it? There's no LA listed, which one could interpret as a warning that it's not actually useful, but maybe you can convince the DM that just means it has a +0. The Tiny eladrin and guardinal from BoED are probably actually more useful as cohorts, but you may have issues with the alignments.

In our al Qadim game, my character has a kukri with a ghostly rogue lurking inside. The DM is treating it as a variant of an intelligent weapon, but it's surprisingly handy. Achmed (the ghost inside) is our party's primary scout, and has made great use out of Libris Mortis material. I don't have much details on how it works (as, really, I doubt the DM does, either), but he's been letting me advance him for paying 1/10 the XP cost to level. Also, he can only go 60' from the kukri, but with Ghostly Grasp, he can carry it if necessary.

Brad

 

[FireLance]

How about the chanelling rules from the Book of Exalted Deeds? At 12th level, you can only get a lantern archon cohort, but you get to use its supernatural and spell-like abilities, so you get its aura of menace, magic circle against evil, teleport, tongues, and aid, detect evil and continual flame at will.

EDIT: A lantern archon is listed as ECL 5 in the Book of Exalted Deeds.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

How about the chanelling rules from the Book of Exalted Deeds? At 12th level, you can only get a lantern archon cohort, but you get to use its supernatural and spell-like abilities, so you get its aura of menace, magic circle against evil, teleport, tongues, and aid, detect evil and continual flame at will.

EDIT: A lantern archon is listed as ECL 5 in the Book of Exalted Deeds.

Wow, this is a fantastic alternate rule. I really, really like it. I'm a bit unhappy about the idea of taking an ECL 5 cohort instead of an ECL 10 cohort, though. And the lantern archon doesn't really have the stats for cleric class levels (the class I was shooting for). Hrm... This requires more consideration. I'm wondering if there isn't an archon out there closer to ECL 10. Or perhaps I could use the Savage Species rules for creating monster class progressions to pick up, say, a 10th-level Astral Deva cohort, and channel her...

Edit: A Trumpet Archon would actually be perfect. It has the teleport ability of the Archon (which Angels don't seem to have, strangely,) and the spellcasting abilities of a cleric. And it's ECL 20, so it should be possible to make it into a monster class, to take a "young" archon as a level-appropriate cohort. Though that's going to be some work. At least they've done the Astral Deva, so that provides some direction on how to do it.

I have this mental image of a cohort trapped by a permanent Magic Jar spell. He resides in a gem most of the time, but if he needs to say or do something, he needs to take over a handy body. Might be one of the PCs, might not be...

This is a really cool idea too. Originally I had thought of something similar with the ghost. It could possess my PC with its Malevolence ability when it wanted to cast a spell that required touch (which can't be performed incorporeally). But the +5 LA really kills the ghost idea. The magic jar spirit, though, would let me pick up a 10th-level cleric...